4 ms·

A nuclear reactor can generate 1 billion watts of very low CO2 electricity for 60 years.

by UltraSane 6mo ago

Projectiboga 6mo ago
With waste with half lifes in the tens of thousands of years sitting in metal casks which cant last 1,000 years.
- inglor_cz 6mo ago
  There are natural concentrations of radionuclides on the planet as well, there was even one place where a spontaneous fission reaction took place (Oklo, Gabon) millions of years ago. If you dig a sufficiently deep hole in a massive slab of granite (like Scandinavia), you can store all the waste of mankind there for approximately eternity. German Greens absolutely love your argument, but compared to the pollution that we produce everyday and which kills people and animals every day, waste storage is a nothingburger.
  - deleted 6mo ago
    [deleted]
- modo_mario 6mo ago
  If I remember well most radioactive waste by volume is not from nuclear energy production and the share that is very small would be drastically lower if places like the US didn't ban it's recycling. It's half life can also be drastically reduced. I also wonder. Is it the implied danger over those tens of thousands of years or would it end up being something more similar to Ramsar in Iran long before that?
  - UltraSane 6mo ago
    You simply put waste deep underground in geologically stable rock. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onkalo_spent_nuclear_fuel_repository https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onkalo_spent_nuclear_fuel_repo...
- tptacek 6mo ago
  And? Conventional power plants are killing people now.
- vidarh 6mo ago
  You'd likely do less harm if you just dumped that waste in a heap on a roadside than if you shut down the plants and as a result ended up with more coal plans continuing to run. Where shutting down nuclear would result in wind or solar replacing it, you might be better off. Maybe hydro - with a very big caveat that the big risk with hydro is dam failures, which are rare, but can be absolutely devastating when they happen. For pretty much every other tech, the death toll is higher than the amortised death toll of nuclear with a large enough margin that you could up the danger of nuclear massively (such as by completely failing to take care of the waste) and still come out ahead.
  - bell-cot 6mo ago
    Going forward, so long as you have competent engineering, the biggest risk of hydro power will be your water sources effectively drying up. (That could be literal, or diversion to irrigation and other uses, or various combinations.) But the yet-bigger problem with hydro power is the extreme scarcity of suitable dam locations.
    - vidarh 6mo ago
      Competent engineering isn't enough. You also need to never end up being in a war zone, and being able to commit to ongoing maintenance forever, or outlawing all construction far downstream (or finding the even more scarce type of locations where nobody wants to build downstream).
      - bell-cot 6mo ago
        Yeah, kinda? In "most" military situations, the enemy would not want the dam destroyed - because it's a valuable part of what they want to conquer, or doing so would flood their own supply lines, or whatever. And having a well-placed reservoir could save your butt if a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firestorm#City_firestorms https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firestorm#City_firestorms got started. To keep providing power to the grid, everything from coal to solar to nuclear needs "forever" maintenance. Yes, an unmaintained dam is a hazard. That can be neutralized with a strategic breach, or (some locations) letting the reservoir silt up. But high-rise buildings, flood-control dikes, and quite a few other things are also "people die if not properly maintained" hazards.
- throw0101c 6mo ago
  > With waste with half lifes in the tens of thousands of years sitting in metal casks which cant last 1,000 years. By "waste" do you need unused nuclear fuel? We can reduce the "waste" if we wanted to (see France), but it's cheaper to dig up more fuel. The '10,000 year' thing is interesting: the nuclear "waste" that lasts that long is actually the stuff is not that dangerous. It can be stopped by tinfoil, and the only way for it to harm someone is either eat it or ground it into powder and snort it like cocaine: just being around it is not that big of deal. The stuff that will get you is primary the stuff that is still around in the cooling pools for the first 6-10 years after removal. After that, there's a bunch of stuff that's around for ~200 years that you don't want to be touching. Once you're >300 years in, the radiation that's given is higher than 'background' in most places, that's why it's considered "risky". Otherwise, as Madison Hilly demonstrated, it's not that big of a deal: * https://xcancel.com/MadiHilly/status/1671491294831493120 https://xcancel.com/MadiHilly/status/1671491294831493120 * https://www.newsweek.com/pregnant-woman-poses-nuclear-waste-prove-point-about-radiation-idaho-1809500 https://www.newsweek.com/pregnant-woman-poses-nuclear-waste-... * Also: https://xcancel.com/ParisOrtizWines/status/1195184970613936129#m https://xcancel.com/ParisOrtizWines/status/11951849706139361...
- UltraSane 6mo ago
  Considering how dangerous CO2 induced climate change could be this is like worrying about drowning when using water to extinguish fires.
- Moldoteck 6mo ago
  wait till you learn what we do with arsenic which lasts forever...
ViewTrick1002 6mo ago
At a cost which could generate ~10 billion watts of very low CO2 electricity for decades if invested in renewables. Also remember that large parts of a nuclear plant is replaced over its operational life. Control systems, steam generators, turbines, generators, tubing, valves etc. What stays is the outer shell and pressure vessel. A nuclear plant doesn't just "work" for 60 years. And there's no trouble designing renewables with a 60 year lifespan. We just don't do it because spending money on getting their expected operational lifetimes from decades to 60+ years is betting on extremely uncertain future returns.
- pjc50 6mo ago
  Under appreciated benefits of Big Photodiode is that there's no moving parts larger than an electron. They do degrade over time, especially due to weathering of the seals and UV exposure, but all the quoted numbers are worst-case. (Inverters are more complicated products and may need more frequently replaced)
- UltraSane 6mo ago
  Nuclear reactors work at night and when there is no wind. Reliable electricity is far more valuable than unreliable electricity.
  - ViewTrick1002 6mo ago
    Did we have rolling blackouts from electricity shortages during the energy crisis? No. Was the electricity extremely expensive? Yes. Reliable electricity has a certain worth. And that is vastly lower than what nuclear power needs when running at 100% 24/7 all year around. And that is disregarding that EDF is already crying about renewables crater the earning potential of their existing nuclear fleet due to load following and increased maintenance costs. Let alone horrifyingly expensive new builds.
- Moldoteck 6mo ago
  but for ren you need parallel gas firming. For nuclear you need some backup, but not fully parallel grid. Paid off npp can generate very cheaply, at 4-7ct/kwh

A nuclear reactor can generate 1 billion watts of very low CO2 electricity for 60 years.

Projectiboga 6mo ago

With waste with half lifes in the tens of thousands of years sitting in metal casks which cant last 1,000 years.

inglor_cz 6mo ago
There are natural concentrations of radionuclides on the planet as well, there was even one place where a spontaneous fission reaction took place (Oklo, Gabon) millions of years ago. If you dig a sufficiently deep hole in a massive slab of granite (like Scandinavia), you can store all the waste of mankind there for approximately eternity. German Greens absolutely love your argument, but compared to the pollution that we produce everyday and which kills people and animals every day, waste storage is a nothingburger.
- deleted 6mo ago
  [deleted]
modo_mario 6mo ago
If I remember well most radioactive waste by volume is not from nuclear energy production and the share that is very small would be drastically lower if places like the US didn't ban it's recycling. It's half life can also be drastically reduced. I also wonder. Is it the implied danger over those tens of thousands of years or would it end up being something more similar to Ramsar in Iran long before that?
- UltraSane 6mo ago
  You simply put waste deep underground in geologically stable rock. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onkalo_spent_nuclear_fuel_repository https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onkalo_spent_nuclear_fuel_repo...
tptacek 6mo ago
And? Conventional power plants are killing people now.
vidarh 6mo ago
You'd likely do less harm if you just dumped that waste in a heap on a roadside than if you shut down the plants and as a result ended up with more coal plans continuing to run. Where shutting down nuclear would result in wind or solar replacing it, you might be better off. Maybe hydro - with a very big caveat that the big risk with hydro is dam failures, which are rare, but can be absolutely devastating when they happen. For pretty much every other tech, the death toll is higher than the amortised death toll of nuclear with a large enough margin that you could up the danger of nuclear massively (such as by completely failing to take care of the waste) and still come out ahead.
- bell-cot 6mo ago
  Going forward, so long as you have competent engineering, the biggest risk of hydro power will be your water sources effectively drying up. (That could be literal, or diversion to irrigation and other uses, or various combinations.) But the yet-bigger problem with hydro power is the extreme scarcity of suitable dam locations.
  - vidarh 6mo ago
    Competent engineering isn't enough. You also need to never end up being in a war zone, and being able to commit to ongoing maintenance forever, or outlawing all construction far downstream (or finding the even more scarce type of locations where nobody wants to build downstream).
    - bell-cot 6mo ago
      Yeah, kinda? In "most" military situations, the enemy would not want the dam destroyed - because it's a valuable part of what they want to conquer, or doing so would flood their own supply lines, or whatever. And having a well-placed reservoir could save your butt if a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firestorm#City_firestorms https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firestorm#City_firestorms got started. To keep providing power to the grid, everything from coal to solar to nuclear needs "forever" maintenance. Yes, an unmaintained dam is a hazard. That can be neutralized with a strategic breach, or (some locations) letting the reservoir silt up. But high-rise buildings, flood-control dikes, and quite a few other things are also "people die if not properly maintained" hazards.
throw0101c 6mo ago
> With waste with half lifes in the tens of thousands of years sitting in metal casks which cant last 1,000 years. By "waste" do you need unused nuclear fuel? We can reduce the "waste" if we wanted to (see France), but it's cheaper to dig up more fuel. The '10,000 year' thing is interesting: the nuclear "waste" that lasts that long is actually the stuff is not that dangerous. It can be stopped by tinfoil, and the only way for it to harm someone is either eat it or ground it into powder and snort it like cocaine: just being around it is not that big of deal. The stuff that will get you is primary the stuff that is still around in the cooling pools for the first 6-10 years after removal. After that, there's a bunch of stuff that's around for ~200 years that you don't want to be touching. Once you're >300 years in, the radiation that's given is higher than 'background' in most places, that's why it's considered "risky". Otherwise, as Madison Hilly demonstrated, it's not that big of a deal: * https://xcancel.com/MadiHilly/status/1671491294831493120 https://xcancel.com/MadiHilly/status/1671491294831493120 * https://www.newsweek.com/pregnant-woman-poses-nuclear-waste-prove-point-about-radiation-idaho-1809500 https://www.newsweek.com/pregnant-woman-poses-nuclear-waste-... * Also: https://xcancel.com/ParisOrtizWines/status/1195184970613936129#m https://xcancel.com/ParisOrtizWines/status/11951849706139361...
UltraSane 6mo ago
Considering how dangerous CO2 induced climate change could be this is like worrying about drowning when using water to extinguish fires.
Moldoteck 6mo ago
wait till you learn what we do with arsenic which lasts forever...

ViewTrick1002 6mo ago

At a cost which could generate ~10 billion watts of very low CO2 electricity for decades if invested in renewables. Also remember that large parts of a nuclear plant is replaced over its operational life. Control systems, steam generators, turbines, generators, tubing, valves etc. What stays is the outer shell and pressure vessel. A nuclear plant doesn't just "work" for 60 years. And there's no trouble designing renewables with a 60 year lifespan. We just don't do it because spending money on getting their expected operational lifetimes from decades to 60+ years is betting on extremely uncertain future returns.

pjc50 6mo ago
Under appreciated benefits of Big Photodiode is that there's no moving parts larger than an electron. They do degrade over time, especially due to weathering of the seals and UV exposure, but all the quoted numbers are worst-case. (Inverters are more complicated products and may need more frequently replaced)
UltraSane 6mo ago
Nuclear reactors work at night and when there is no wind. Reliable electricity is far more valuable than unreliable electricity.
- ViewTrick1002 6mo ago
  Did we have rolling blackouts from electricity shortages during the energy crisis? No. Was the electricity extremely expensive? Yes. Reliable electricity has a certain worth. And that is vastly lower than what nuclear power needs when running at 100% 24/7 all year around. And that is disregarding that EDF is already crying about renewables crater the earning potential of their existing nuclear fleet due to load following and increased maintenance costs. Let alone horrifyingly expensive new builds.
Moldoteck 6mo ago
but for ren you need parallel gas firming. For nuclear you need some backup, but not fully parallel grid. Paid off npp can generate very cheaply, at 4-7ct/kwh